No compromises at the expense of the right children in the EU
Osnabrück, 17.5.2023 - As part of an alliance of more than 50 organization, the child rights organization terre des hommes calls the Federal Government to remove its plans to reform the common European asylum system. With a view to the upcoming meeting of the EU Interior Minister on June 8, the alliance appeals to the federal government to meet its humanitarian responsibility and to take their own coalition agreement seriously. There must be no compromises at the expense of protection and the right -wing children and adolescents.
Of all things, around the 30th anniversary of the 1993 asylum compromise, the so far sharpest cut into German asylum law, the Federal Government, together with the other European member states, prepares a similar cut into European asylum law. Together with more than 50 other organizations, terre des hommes decidedly rejected the German position, which is united in the government at the end of April, to reform the so -called joint European asylum system (GEAS). The reform plans would result in detention camps at the EU external borders and could lead to a departure of content-related protection tests in the EU. From a child law perspective, the reform proposals also violate child welfare and fundamental rights in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Children.
»It is unacceptable that the Federal Government plans the path of disenfranchised people in the EU, especially children and adolescents. On June 8th among the European Interior Minister, asylum applications from refugee children and adolescents in the EU could be rejected as inadmissible because a minimum of protection can be granted to them in a non -European country on paper. This is in blatant contradiction to child and human rights, but also with the commitment of the Federal Government to examine every asylum application in the EU. In the worst case, it means a withdrawal from refugee protection in the EU, comparable to the 1993 German asylum compromise, «explained Sophia Eckert, an expert in migration and escape at terre des hommes .
In the reform proposals, there is also a lack of systematic and practically enforceable ensuring the rights of children. For example, guardianship and legal assistance for unaccompanied minors are not guaranteed from the first day. In the so -called "screening", which sets the course for an accelerated procedure at the border or a normal procedure, minors are also foreseeable in detention camps or adhesive -like facilities. Age assessments would also take place in many ways under imprisonment or liability -like conditions, and there is no way to act against faulty age assessments. However, the rights of children and adolescents cannot be protected without reasonable opportunities to appeal to appeal and therefore cannot be guaranteed.
»From a child law perspective, the reform proposals are devastating. Even if minors, as in the screening probably, only spend a few days in custody, this time can feel like months due to their intensive sense of time - with all physical and psychological consequences that can be detained in children. The child's rights convention violates the detention of minors for migration control. This must be taken into account in the event of a European asylum law reform, «explained Sophia Eckert. »At least the Federal Government wants to work at the EU level to take out minors from the up to twelve weeks of accelerated asylum procedure in detention camps at the border. She must never give in on this point in Brussels. The haven for arbitrary age limits is unsustainable under child law. Because the Children's Rights Convention protects everyone up to the age of 18. «
Similar to the 1993 asylum compromise in Germany, European asylum law enforcement arises in a climate of the growing right -wing populist pressure in the EU. terre des hommes and the European partner organizations also observe increasing willingness to violence and violations of rights towards refugees and minors. For example, as a joint statement by terre des hommes and Equal Rights Beyond Borders shows, minors are already imprisoned on the Greek island of Kos and violated the coarsest in their social, cultural and economic rights. terre des hommes together with many other organizations, calls on the Federal Government in its appeal to make a decision to oppose this pressure and the populist agitation against refugees. This also means that there may be no compromises at the expense of fundamental rights of refugee children and adolescents. Human rights and the protection of the child's well -being must finally determine European discourse again. We call for: child welfare instead of warehouse custody!